THE MYSTERIOUS WOMAN
Mr. Birnes' busy heels fairly spurned the pavements of Fifth Avenue
as he started toward Madison Square. Here was a long line of cabs
drawn up beside the curb, some twenty or thirty in all. The fifth
from the end bore the number he sought--Mr. Birnes chuckled; and
there, alongside it, stood William Johns, swapping Billingsgate with
the driver of a hansom, the while he kept one eye open for a
prospective fare. It was too easy! Mr. Birnes paused long enough
to congratulate himself upon his marvelous acumen, and then he
approached the driver.
"You are William Johns?" he accused him sharply.
"That's me, Cap," the cabby answered readily.
"A few minutes past four o'clock this afternoon you went up Fifth
Avenue, and stopped at the corner of Thirty-fourth Street to pick up
a fare--a young man."
"Yep."
"You drove him to the corner of Sixty-seventh Street and Fifth
Avenue," the detective went on just to forestall possible denials.
"He got out there, paid you, and you went on up Fifth Avenue."
"Far be it from me to deceive you, Cap," responded the cabby with
irritating levity. "I done that same."
"Who was that man?" demanded Mr. Birnes coldly.
"Search me! I never seen him before."
The detective regarded the cabby with accusing eyes. Then, quite
casually, he flipped open his coat and Johns caught a glimpse of
a silver shield. It might only have been accident, of course,
still--
"Now, Johns, who was the man in the cab when you stopped to pick up
the second man at Thirty-fourth Street?"
"Wrong, Cap," and the cabby grinned. "There wasn't any man."
"Don't attempt to deny--"
"No man, Cap. It was a woman."
"A woman!" the detective repeated. "A woman!"
"Sure thing--a woman, a regular woman. And, Cap, she was a pippin,
a peachorino, a beauty bright," he added, gratuitously.
Mr. Birnes stared thoughtfully across the street for a little while.
So there was a woman in it! Mr. Wynne had transferred the contents
of the gripsack to her, in a cab, on a crowded thoroughfare, right
under his nose!
"I was a little farther down the line there," Johns went on to
explain. "About a quarter of four o'clock, I guess, she came along.
She got in, after telling me to drive slowly up Fifth Avenue so I
would pass Thirty-fourth Street five minutes or so after four
o'clock. If a young man with a gripsack hailed me at the corner I
was to stop and let him get in; then I was to go on up Fifth Avenue.
If I wasn't stopped I was to drive on to Thirty-fifth Street, cut
across to Madison Avenue, down to Thirty-third Street, then back to
Fifth Avenue and past Thirty-fourth Street again, going uptown. The
guy with the gripsack caught us first crack out of the box."
"And then?" demanded the detective eagerly.
"I went on up Fifth Avenue, according to sailing orders, and the guy
inside stopped me at Sixty-seventh Street. He got out and gimme a
five-spot, telling me to go a few blocks, then turn and bring the
lady back to the Sixth Avenue 'L' at Fifty-eighth Street. I done it.
That's all. She went up the steps, and that's the last I seen of
her."
"Did she carry a small gripsack?"
"Yep. It would hold about as much as a high hat."
Explicit as the information was it led nowhere, apparently. Mr.
Birnes readily understood this much, yet there was a chance--a bare
chance--that he might trace the girl on the 'L,' in which case--anyway,
it was worth trying.
"What did she look like? How was she dressed?" he asked.
"She had on one of them blue tailor-made things with a lid to match,
and a long feather in it," the cabby answered obligingly. "She was
pretty as a--as a--she was a beaut, Cap, sort of skinny, and had all
sorts of hair on her head--brownish, goldish sort of hair. She was
about twenty-two or three, maybe, and--and--Cap, she was the goods,
that's all."
In the course of a day a thousand women, more or less, answering that
description in a general sort of way, ride back and forth on the
elevated trains. Mr. Birnes sighed as he remembered this; still it
might produce results. Then came another idea.
"Did you happen to look in the cab after the young woman left it?" he
inquired.
"No."
"Had any fares since?"
"No."
Mr. Birnes opened the door of the closed cab and glanced in. Perhaps
there might be a stray glove, a handkerchief, some more definite clew
than this vague description. He scrutinized the inside of the
vehicle carefully; there was nothing. Yes, by Jingo, here _was_
something--a white streak under the edge of the cushion on the seat!
Mr. Birnes' hopeful fingers fished it out. It was a white envelope,
sealed and--_and addressed to him!_
If you are as clever as I imagine you are, you will find this.
My address is No. ---- East Thirty-seventh Street. I shall be
pleased to see you if you will call.
E. VAN CORTLANDT WYNNE.
It was most disconcerting, really.